Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to congratulate the Rotary Club of Kapunda on having their 50th anniversary on 31 January this year. It was held at the Dutton Park club rooms, the home of the Bombers, my old football team. And, of course, Kapunda is the town I grew up in. So it was terrific to see this organisation which has played such an active and committed role in the community life of this town—Rotary received its charter in 1958—celebrate this anniversary.

It was interesting to hear Bruce Eastick, who is a former Mayor of Gawler and was a charter member of the Gawler Rotary Club as well, speak about events in that first meeting on that first night in 1958. Bruce has played a great role in the local community in and around Gawler.

The achievements of the Kapunda Rotary Club are really quite prominent in the town. Probably the most prominent achievement has been the building of ‘Map the Miner’, which was an idea of John Davidson in 1986, to celebrate the contribution that the Cornish miners made to the state of South Australia. They made Kapunda the oldest mining town in South Australia and one of the oldest in the country. Map the Miner is a statue, about 13 metres high, of a Cornish miner, commissioned by the Rotary Club, and designed and built by Ben van Zetten. Unfortunately, although it was finished in 1988, it was burnt down, I think at the start of 2007. So it was damaged by fire but then rebuilt and made bigger and better and, thank God, it has been made fireproof! It is a really prominent sign of Kapunda’s heritage.

Another thing the Rotary Club has achieved is the construction of a helipad at Kapunda Hospital, something that has been used often to help people who have had car accidents and the like, and has obviously saved many lives. Brian Goodfellow and Don Franks were involved in that project and David Quodling gave an admirable speech to the meeting on that. We also had Dean Rohlach, my old school principal, receive the Paul Harris Fellowship. The night itself was organised by Anne Hornsey, who has made a magnificent contribution to the town, to the school where she worked for many years and also to the Rotary Club, along with her husband Robert Hornsey, who is, of course, the Mayor of the Light Regional Council. So this is a club that is very dear to my heart and a town that is very dear to my heart.